"It was red, sir! Not black like the Injuns, but red, an' light colored like a gal's. Just then I felt a movement on the rope, an' I knowed thet they was tryin' to haul me up. I moved a few inches, and then come down again. Two or three times I felt them heave, but every time back I come to whar I was before. Then I looks up."
"I never can forget it! Never, never," he said, half whispering. "The rope was frayin' through over the edge o' th' rock; 'twould only take two or three minits of thet sawin' to drop a plumb thousand feet onter the rocks or down inter the river. Then an idee come into my head, an' I swung myself to and fro much as you see children pumpin' in a swing. At last I was movin' back an' for'ard, longer an' longer, until once or twice I come within most jumpin' distance of the lidge; but I couldn't git the rope from 'round my arms. Then suddenly I thought about my knife, an' still swinging as hard as I could swing, I got it out; but it slipped from my hand, an' down it went; I heard it ring agin the cliff. I was goin' forward with a rush jest then, an' it looked as if the houses was all comin' out to meet me, an' suddenly I didn't know nothin' more."
The Professor was leaning forward expectantly, the boys had grasped hands, great beads of perspiration stood on Coleman's forehead. But he went on in a low even voice that never changed in its expression.
"When I come to I couldn't at first tell whar I was, but then I saw that I was lyin' on my back all kivered up with dust in the middle of a lot of brick pots an' rubbish, an' one of my feet was hangin' out over the cliff.
"Thar's where I landed," he said, pointing across the cañon. "I wasn't much hurt to speak on, an' I got up on to my feet an' looked 'roun' me."
"Well," said the Professor, excitedly, "go on! Go on!"
"It was a queer sight, I tell you," said the guide, resuming. "I had to move careful, for everything tiched raised sech a dust that it 'most strangled me. Thar was them four skeletons close up agin the wall--you can't see them, for they're right behind thet pile o' stones. Jest to the left was a big trough made o' wood, in which was some ears o' corn. I couldn't tell ye what I'd seen, but thar was speers with stone heds, and painted jugs, an' hangin' on a hook was a long cloth coat or somethin'; it was fringed with claws o' bears, an' hanged by a string was a big tooth, like o' which I never seen. There was a picture o' a elephant or sompthin' on the wall, an' a big stick curled like a snake with gold eyes--at least, it looked like gold. A heap o' truck was in a corner; but inside the houses the dust was so thick an' stiflin' when I tiched anythin', thet I'd hev to run out into the air to breathe. So I found a flight of steps, an' goin' up them careful, I got to the roof of thet big house. Thet lidge runs back mor'n a hundred feet, an' I went further in. As I got used to the dryness an' the dark I could see some more bodies--skeletons, at least twenty--sittin' close to the wall; they was crouched up an' 'rapped about with rough cloth ban'ges; some was sewed up in hides. An' then what do you s'pose I foun'?"